ernest_t_bass;690875 wrote:Are you devaluing the arts?

Oh not at ALL. The arts are a vital element to a well-rounded student and human being.

I'm saying it's just too different a subject with too different a curriculum to try to judge it by the same standards as a math or science or even English class.

O-Trap;690887 wrote:Oh not at ALL. The arts are a vital element to a well-rounded student and human being.

I'm saying it's just too different a subject with too different a curriculum to try to judge it by the same standards as a math or science or even English class.

You gotta have a base. My opinion, as a teaching professional.

ernest_t_bass;690898 wrote:You gotta have a base. My opinion, as a teaching professional.

I'd say even that each class is so different that the base should be different. I don't mind the notion that there is some semblance of a fundamental criteria for each department. That might work.

ccrunner609;690628 wrote:because that is almost impossible. You can have 30+ kids in your class, you have kids of all levels. Honor students, IEP students, socially promoted students, move ins that arent on your curriculum etc......the variables to base an evaluation are tremendous that cant be planned for.

What you are asking for is an education where teachers teach to their evaluation or teach to the test. Not a good environment. How about we pay store clerks on how much product the customer buys. How about the Kohls cashiers and the Kroger bag boys rely on how much you buy in the store for their pay. If they have a bad week or month they get paid less.

Why do you speak of the teaching profession like it is unique in terms of variables being in the equation of determining merit pay?

ccrunner609;690717 wrote:I dont know how colleges do it, I dont know if they even do it. But you cant compare a teacher that is teaching 1st graders in Cleveland public schools to a professor at Miami University. Both teachers but worlds apart.

Worlds apart which is why they get paid differently. If all were unionized they'd make about the same. If one is teaching at a higher level, they should make more.

ccrunner609;690749 wrote:I might of missed these suggestions and gladly I did, they are ridiculously stupid. Student and parent evaluations? LOLOLOLOLOLOL. The Union contract is what protects of from this. When a teacher can be fired on mere accusations, we need protection. Education is way more political that most know.

Teachers don't get fired on mere accusations with or without the union. Stop sensationalizing. There is an investigation regardless of a union or not. "We need protection"? You sound like a blind little sheep, they have effectively brainwashed you into believeing you need the union. This is what unions are great at; they know if they don't convince people that they need the union, people will realize that they really don't and the unions would go away on their own.

dwccrew;691115 wrote:Teachers don't get fired on mere accusations with or without the union. Stop sensationalizing. There is an investigation regardless of a union or not. "We need protection"? You sound like a blind little sheep, they have effectively brainwashed you into believeing you need the union. This is what unions are great at; they know if they don't convince people that they need the union, people will realize that they really don't and the unions would go away on their own.

Exactly. I'm in management in a non-union plant. It's amazing how many company policies and state and federal laws we must follow in disciplining employees. And our executive staff is very meticulous about following those procedures.

This notion that only unions are powerful enough to "protect" the average work is complete nonsense.

In today's business climate unions have outlived their usefulness. All they are good for now is collecting dues and redistributing some of those dues to politicians beholden to union money....and we all know which party gets the vast majority of union "contributions" don't we?

ccrunner609;686607 wrote:all the teacher contracts I have ever seen, teachers get their pay increases off the base, now administrators are the ones raping the system. They will get 5% pay increases and theis come off current salaries. Total BS.

So I just checked my contract and it seems that our pay increases are based off of the previous year's salary for that step, not the salary of a 0 year teacher. The same was true in my previous district.

the time and cost involved to evaluate each teacher each year would be off the chart....and who would do it? the principal? he doesnt have time. that being said i support merit pay and so does our union, but you would be better off evauluating on what the teacher puts in ie training, professional development, summer hours, than what they get out ie test scores....also maybe we need to scale back testing....this costs taxpayers millions to adminster and to grade them.

I Wear Pants;686145 wrote:Teachers aren't bargaining with the state government. They have to bargain with their local school boards.

Sorry I have not replied.

FFT, Manhattan, and O-Trap are giving very sound analysis ITT. Since this is a more conservative board I tend to try and offer a more commie/pinko perspective but I have to say I agree with many of their points. I mean, imagine the kind of earning power a virtuoso math teacher could have if he were able to negotiate his own terms for compensation? Imagine if gym teachers got paid more if they could get the BMI down on some of our obese children. Etc. Etc. As I've mentioned previously, if people get passed the idea that I'm just some puppy dog and rainbows lib, uber-powerful unions like, say, the UAW or the Ohio Education Association can distort marketplaces just like an overbearing government or a monopolistic multinational corporation, etc. Any time we have an actor that can sufficiently distort the price we don't have a sound market.

Nevertheless, I feel compelled to at least mention something to the contrary.

I don't mean to say that people will be bargaining with a state rep, etc. Our federal system has limited the powers of our national government and has by and large reserved the powers to educate our children to our 50 states (Well, supposedly. NCLB???). Ohio is a strong home rule state and this allows for power to broadened even more to prevent tyranny and this allows smaller administrative divisions, specifically, local school districts, to exercise Ohio's police powers in their own administrative area. In effect, we're talking about an agency relationship between these administrators and the broader executive branch of the Buckeye State.

Now, perhaps in a small town like Huron, Ohio where I'm originally from, the fear that some yuppies we know from the high school football games who become school board members will have sufficient power to marginalize the labor of educators is not as great. I think this is a fair point and speaks to the larger wisdom of devolving power to the local level. I do not debate the practicality of this. And, the reality is that public administrators, sheltered from the realities of economic consequences typically hold a unique province over spinelessness when it comes to cutting budgets and it's probably true that onerous union contracts contribute to this problem.

With all that in mind, my point, if it's worth anything at all (probably not) is merely a philosophical one. I think Majorspark speaks about it most eloquently when he describes how even at local levels we can never have too much faith that those who obtain power will not abuse it, specifically governments. This, anyway is an epistemological pillar of conservative thought. It just seems strange to me, that people being propped up by this pillar would desire to make it ILLEGAL to unite against a government agent of any size and for any reason.

I agree with many of the critiques of public sector and educational unions. But, I'm a liberal who thinks that government might use its power to rearrange private agreements and contracts so as to place state interests above those of the individual. I guess it just seems weird seeing posters often decrying the use of power by governments and trumpeting the virtue of the individual asking these governments to use the hammer of Thor on the bargaining power of many individuals when there might be more immediate choices employed to fix the budget (if after all that's what the goal really is).

BoatShoes;692405 wrote:.... I guess it just seems weird seeing posters often decrying the use of power by governments and trumpeting the virtue of the individual asking these governments to use the hammer of Thor on the bargaining power of many individuals when there might be more immediate choices employed to fix the budget (if after all that's what the goal really is).

These conservative government members are working to give the ultimate individual authority to the working by providing them the means to negotiate based on personal merits. Conservative posters view that as exactly what a governmental body should works towards.

There indeed are or choices available to fix the budget and I have no reason to believe the will not be implemented. In fact I believe it's required in the State of Ohio to have a balanced budget lending to all means being considered to ensure such balance of revenue and expenditures.

Con_Alma;692418 wrote:These conservative government members are working to give the ultimate individual authority to the working by providing them the means to negotiate based on personal merits. Conservative posters view that as exactly what a governmental body should works towards.

There indeed are or choices available to fix the budget and I have no reason to believe the will not be implemented. In fact I believe it's required in the State of Ohio to have a balanced budget lending to all means being considered to ensure such balance of revenue and expenditures.

Why presume that a powerful government with much more bargaining power will negotiate a price that would coincide closely to merit? For instance, in No Limit Hold Em with 10 Players at the Table you can follow David Sklansky's strategy based on the relative merit of the hands rather closely and decently predict their success....if it's heads up poker and you've got a small stack and the other guy's got a big stack...even if you're Doyle Brunson, you're liable to get bullied out of some good hands.

I know conservatives are often preoccupied with Hobbesian negative liberty but merely not being restrained by others does not always ensure positive liberty.

In addition, There is lots of talk of the cuts and lack of wage increases felt by the private sector. Nevertheless, our employers are still earning profits and have dramatically expanded economic growth since 1990. Yet, most private sector workers, many of whom bargain on their own these days, have not experienced meaningful wage increases in conjunction with economic growth. It's hard to imagine that all of that productivity that caused the last few economic expansions was solely from the effort of the very top income earners.

I mean, might it be the case that perhaps the private sector should have done a better job of improving the wages of the average worker over the last 20 years as we've lowered the effective tax base repeatedly for the managers of our firms?

And yet, even with many reasonable people including Ayn Rand's Cuckold Alan Greenspan believing that much of what is maligning our economy is not because of some teachers bargaining together but powerful, elite people at the top siphoning away GDP at rates not seen since the 30's, what we see only a few short years after the financial crisis is the middle class (what's left of it) spewing venom within itself with those who've fallen on hard times looking to drag those down with some income security into the wallows of real america, where people take less for more output and lose earning power with each economic boom. C'mon public workers, join us down here in the Dave Ramsey land of rice and beans!

I'm sure you'll say...there you go boatshoes, beating the class warfare drum again....but look at the T.V. look at this thread....Class warfare is already happening within itself...it's got nothing to do with me....This whole thread has consisted of presumably middle class americans and/or HENRY's battling each other while some manager devoid from patriotism strolls into my office asking for a dutch sandwich (Yet you won't see transfer pricing abuse on any signs at a tea party rally).

Con_Alma;680764 wrote:wkfan That's the problem. The responsibility must be with the parents and child. If it's placed on a school system it will never work, no matter how effective the school system is.

You cannot educate someone that doesn't themselves hold the responsibility of becoming educated. They have no chips in the game. It doesn't work.

This sums it up entirely. It couldn't be stated any more clearly than this. Education just isn't on the priority list of a number of families.

Considering the bill passed, and MBP might be on its way, I think this need bumped. Why not!?

BoatShoes;692457 wrote:Why presume that a powerful government with much more bargaining power will negotiate a price that would coincide closely to merit? For instance, in No Limit Hold Em with 10 Players at the Table you can follow David Sklansky's strategy based on the relative merit of the hands rather closely and decently predict their success....if it's heads up poker and you've got a small stack and the other guy's got a big stack...even if you're Doyle Brunson, you're liable to get bullied out of some good hands.

I know conservatives are often preoccupied with Hobbesian negative liberty but merely not being restrained by others does not always ensure positive liberty.

In addition, There is lots of talk of the cuts and lack of wage increases felt by the private sector. Nevertheless, our employers are still earning profits and have dramatically expanded economic growth since 1990. Yet, most private sector workers, many of whom bargain on their own these days, have not experienced meaningful wage increases in conjunction with economic growth. It's hard to imagine that all of that productivity that caused the last few economic expansions was solely from the effort of the very top income earners.

I mean, might it be the case that perhaps the private sector should have done a better job of improving the wages of the average worker over the last 20 years as we've lowered the effective tax base repeatedly for the managers of our firms?

And yet, even with many reasonable people including Ayn Rand's Cuckold Alan Greenspan believing that much of what is maligning our economy is not because of some teachers bargaining together but powerful, elite people at the top siphoning away GDP at rates not seen since the 30's, what we see only a few short years after the financial crisis is the middle class (what's left of it) spewing venom within itself with those who've fallen on hard times looking to drag those down with some income security into the wallows of real america, where people take less for more output and lose earning power with each economic boom. C'mon public workers, join us down here in the Dave Ramsey land of rice and beans!

I'm sure you'll say...there you go boatshoes, beating the class warfare drum again....but look at the T.V. look at this thread....Class warfare is already happening within itself...it's got nothing to do with me....This whole thread has consisted of presumably middle class americans and/or HENRY's battling each other while some manager devoid from patriotism strolls into my office asking for a dutch sandwich (Yet you won't see transfer pricing abuse on any signs at a tea party rally).

It's not the responsibility of a sector or government to raise wages of a class. The responsibility lies solely in the employees to bring more value to the table than they are being paid. People are not over paid for a lengthy period of time. Eventually it will cease.

I don't want my government raising the wages of employees nor do I want high level managers raising workers wages. I want employees to bring increasing levels of value to an employer that has a reason to compensate them for doing so. That usually comes from the opportunity cost of losing such an employee.

BoatShoes;692457 wrote:... but merely not being restrained by others does not always ensure positive liberty.

I think we need a quick definition of what you mean by "positive liberty."

O-Trap;742110 wrote:I think we need a quick definition of what you mean by "positive liberty."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_liberty

BoatShoes is not an actual Sociologist....but he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Ah, I just wanted to be sure he was using that and not just a general concept of benevolent liberty.

The thing about negative liberty is that we live in a framework where we can never be completely without resource. A lot of people in my neighborhood have what they call their "hustle." It doesn't mean (though it seems like it could have come from) what a person does at a pool hall into duping someone worse at pool to bet a lot of money. It's basically just a side source of income. Whether it be that they sell something for a commission or provide a unique service or even perform something, where they weren't given a way to earn, they found a way. They seized a way.

That's the whole idea. If you're not happy with how much you make, you are still ultimately able to do something like this, and many people have learned that if they work hard enough, they might not reach what they're shooting for, but they're better off than if they were doing nothing at all.

Fab4Runner;681238 wrote:Sorry, but you're just not providing any proof that this is the case. Merit based pay works in the private sector and said sector is ridiculously more efficient and well run. All I hear are excuses as to why it just can't work when there isn't a shred of evidence to back that up. On the other hand, there are literally millions of examples of merit based systems working.

My only problem with this statement is that private sector most of the time is based on profit. PROFIT, PROFIT, PROFIT....If a company has an outstanding year, they reward their employees, rightfully so.

Public schools do not work on that model. They work on a strict budget. If the school has a great year or an awful year, they still have the same budget. If they go over budget, where does that money come from? Merit pay by definition could break a budget from year to year.

This seems to be the biggest reason why public education and private business cannot be treated the same way.

BTW, I despise education unions.

georgemc80;742259 wrote:My only problem with this statement is that private sector most of the time is based on profit. PROFIT, PROFIT, PROFIT....If a company has an outstanding year, they reward their employees, rightfully so.

Indeed. However, there are positions in many companies whose performance cannot, in any determinable way, be connected to the profitability of the company. Somehow, they do just fine as well.

georgemc80;742259 wrote:BTW, I despise education unions.

I know. It makes me smile when I think about it.

I just found this thread and I'm "marking my territory" by making this post and will come back with comments after I read the whole thing.

Wow! I just read through page one. FFT, of course, has the "equation" that will fix everything. Kinda like the old JJ stats in which the person who made the most posts was the "top poster". And so in a merit system "he who kisses ass gets the pay".

Ya know, in all this, ETB has really elevated himself IMO. Great job! Sure is better than reading about boners and gays!

I'll be back later after I do some more reading starting on page 2. WriterBuckeye will be happy to know that I'm downgrading to a fish sandwich instead of a steak! Hahaha! Getting used to the new regime, ya know.

georgemc80;742259 wrote:My only problem with this statement is that private sector most of the time is based on profit. PROFIT, PROFIT, PROFIT....If a company has an outstanding year, they reward their employees, rightfully so.

Public schools do not work on that model. They work on a strict budget. If the school has a great year or an awful year, they still have the same budget. If they go over budget, where does that money come from? Merit pay by definition could break a budget from year to year.

This seems to be the biggest reason why public education and private business cannot be treated the same way.

BTW, I despise education unions.

You make some decent points, however, if schools were producing excellent results and students were really succeeding, levies would be passed and the budget would increase, thus allowing for a bigger budget and pay increases.

georgemc80;742259 wrote:...

Public schools do not work on that model. They work on a strict budget. If the school has a great year or an awful year, they still have the same budget. If they go over budget, where does that money come from? Merit pay by definition could break a budget from year to year.

....

Merit pay doesn't have to even exceed a budget. A budget can include merit pay dollars just as the present format includes step increases and raises according to the contract. If there's $1xxx,xxx in the budget for merit pay, then those more deserving get a larger portion. Same may even receive none! Gasp!!

O-Trap;742269 wrote:Indeed. However, there are positions in many companies whose performance cannot, in any determinable way, be connected to the profitability of the company. Somehow, they do just fine as well.

you are right, however the company still as a whole does well, meaning those employees not directly linked to profitability still benefit atleast a little.

Glory Days;742442 wrote:you are right, however the company still as a whole does well, meaning those employees not directly linked to profitability still benefit atleast a little.

Oh to be sure. However, their performance evaluation, and subsequent raise or lack thereof, is dependent largely on the subjective evaluation of their immediate superior without any metrics. Somehow, these people usually make more than minimum wage.

BRF;742366 wrote:Wow! I just read through page one. FFT, of course, has the "equation" that will fix everything. Kinda like the old JJ stats in which the person who made the most posts was the "top poster". And so in a merit system "he who kisses ass gets the pay".

Ya know, in all this, ETB has really elevated himself IMO. Great job! Sure is better than reading about boners and gays!

I'll be back later after I do some more reading starting on page 2. WriterBuckeye will be happy to know that I'm downgrading to a fish sandwich instead of a steak! Hahaha! Getting used to the new regime, ya know.

Do I get more pay based on my increased merit in your eyes?